Pages

Tarmac ribbons criss-crossing the landscape, dusty back roads twisting between the cool shadows of ancient pines, and less traveled pathways connecting present to past, all I wander, seeking, seeing, with my keyboard and camera capturing scenes and stories to share with you.

Now in its fifth year, this venue has become an important part of my life, a place where I can express my thoughts and feelings about the things I see and do, hoping the process brings me a bit closer to friends and family who enjoy sharing my sometimes chaotic and often nonlinear observations and ideas. A journal, I suppose, but one with which I find pleasure in thinking others are alongside me on my journey.

November 14, 2016

... at its full phase the moon hasn't been this close to the earth since 1948, before i was born ... in 2024 it's going to orbit even closer to the earth, my plan is that by then i'll have one of those super-duper extra-fancy nikkor lenses, you know, a tube full of expensive glass that a mile away will clearly capture all the details on a gnat's eyelash ...

... we went up to the hinkley-goodwill campus sunday evening for the moonrise ... mid-november, it was nice to enjoy shirtsleeves only temperatures ... john had pre-computed several locations we thought might be interesting, we ended up aligning the moody chapel tower with the rising moon ... i made quite a few exposures, of which this turned out to be the one i liked best ...

... i then turned my attention to john, "hey—hold very, very still," and then took this picture using my nikkor 300mm ... not an easy thing to do, i might add, making a snapshot with an 11x lens ...

... this is a vertical panorama of two hdr'd images, six exposures in all ... although it looks it, the moon has not been pasted in ... i experimented trying to get some of the lunar features to be clear and must admit that i may've overdone the process a tiny bit ... this is a case of having a lens that isn't quite up to what's being asked of it—severe chromatic aberration at the maximum aperature, in this situation very difficult to fix ...

... at five-thirty this morning we were across the river from the capitol building waiting for the flip side of the super-super moon ... in the pre-dawn darkness we became fascinated with the wisps of mist that swirled and whirled around the great copper dome ...

... as the it approached the horizon i realized that the field of view of my 300mm nikkor was far too narrow to capture both the moon and the capitol dome, so rather hastily i swapped out the big lens for my legacy canon 200mm fd lens ... was the right decision, even if it did result in a classic metal lens cap being left behind in the crystal-like frost covered tall grass ...

... seconds later ...

... on the way to breakfast john pulled over so i could snap this picture of the capitol building illuminated by the morning sun ...

... we drove to the sunset diner in belgrade for lots of coffee and a tasty breakfast ... upon entering john headed to the back of the building to wash up ... as i was setting down i heard from a group of older men sitting at a nearby table a question, "is your camera an xt-1 or xt-2" ... so cool ... i was welcomed to their table, where a great conversation concerning "nikon f3hp's" and "nikormat el's" ensued ... [you either know or you don't know, what can i say] ... after john joined us we learned that one of the gentlemen was "the oldest guy in belgrade" ... 94 ... !!! ... we were enthralled by the tales of his experiences in brazil in world war 2 ... his companions were equally fascinating ... at the end of the meal another old guy joined us, "he's the oldest *&^$^*% in belgrade, i'm the oldest nice guy in rome," or something like that ...

... what great fun, what a great morning ... from both john and myself, thank you, moon, thank you very much ...

Postings are in most recent first order. Select the year, month, or day to expand the listings. Selecting a particular month presents a scrollable page with all the listings. Clicking on a picture will open it in a full-screen view, then click the "X" in the upper right to return to the blog.